The Ghost of Christmas Past

 The holidays bring a sort of pensive haunting.  Or at least I find them so. Starting somewhere around Thanksgiving and ending somewhat abruptly after the New Year, perhaps concluded with the very singing of Auld Lang Syne.  It’s hard to really put one’s finger on what causes this effect, but it could very likely be the confluence of multiple stimuli that lead us to our inevitable yearly rendezvous with a Dickensian Ghost of Christmas Past.

I want to say there’s a scientific reason for this, a psychological phenomenon that makes one disappear into the dusty halls of one’s memory, lift the wraithlike muslin dropcloths, and peer at the old portraits of what once was.

Curiosity, and the internet, led me to the concept of Episodic Memory, not to be confused with Semantic Memory; the former being a memory of events, the latter being a memory of facts.  This would, presumably, be the difference in remembering falling off of one’s bicycle at the age of seven and knowing that at the age of seven one fell off of their bicycle.  Episodic Memory is dependent partially upon Autoassociative Memory, or the ability to retrieve memory data from only a small sample of that data. (I should caveat before continuing that I am in no way a psychologist or neurologist - simply someone who finds this topic fascinating.)    

I would think that this is, in fact, where the “Christmas Spirit” comes from - a triggering of episodic memory at the societal level (in societies that have the Christmas traditions), but easily recognized in societies that have their own respective holiday traditions as well.  When a large enough portion of the population has its synapses affected by collective episodic memory, layered upon years and years, and a veritable stratification of memorable Christmases past, we reach what we have now. A near-hysteria about a single holiday, beginning earlier and earlier every year as people yearn for Christmas and the warmth of dopamine that elves on shelves, rosy-cheeked Santas, and yowling pop-divas bring. It is of note that corporate America and the industry of “goods-we-don’t-need” doubtlessly capitalize off of this. 

But a squinting analysis of Christmas in society is not what I’m spending my Christmas Eve belaboring. We’ve seen enough material on that. No, I’m focusing on the individual Christmas Spirit, that ghost which begins its visits as the cold weather sets in, the comforting aroma of old leaves becomes more ubiquitous, and we find ourselves with less daylight and more time to reflect.  This reflection for many of us becomes more solidified with the entry into our own personal and family traditions and rituals - the hanging of certain ornaments upon the tree, the recreation of a family recipe, or the sound of a particular Christmas carol. Any of these can send the mind ambling down that hall of episodic memories.

So it is, often on November and December evenings, that I find myself at the carved, creaking oak door of that hall.  On this night, in particular, it is a particular rendition of Greensleeves.  There is a chill down my neck, I know where this tune is leading me, and I embrace it.  Such journeys are inevitable - as we get older we wish to visit our halls, and the loved ones within, even more. My hall is old, nothing ornate; it nearly feels as though this hall was built by someone before me, and merely decorated by my memory.  It is lit by candles and the occasional table lamp, something akin to what adorned my grandmother’s house in Baltimore.  It’s a long hall, beginning with a stone hearth at the entrance and extending straight ahead. The paintings hang at shoulder height, some in alcoves, adorned by holly or evergreen wreathing; others, less important or favored, merely take up space against the great stone bricks. Much like a Canaletto or a Bellotto, the paintings come to life as I stop in front of them. A handful of Turkish kilims adorn the spaces between the paintings. A worn, yet soft, red carpet runs the length of my hall, providing a welcome warmth over the white marble floor. A further walk down the hall means it’s a bit dimmer, but there are still a few paintings there.  The sound that carries me down this hall of memories, led by the hand by my own Ghost of Christmas Past is a medley of the Victorian dulcimer and 1980s Mannheim Steamroller Christmas carols.  Through the Romanesque Revival arched windows, I can see the snow gently falling.  Should one observe from outside, they would see a gentle orange warmth spilling out onto the snow from within, while hearing that oh so rare whisper of snowflakes landing. 

Within the hall, during this particularly brief stay, there are a few alcoves I wish to visit.  These are the most adorned alcoves, and one has a dark wood deacon’s bench with worn spindled back sitting next to it.  I walk past the more recent paintings, with young faces and red curls smiling at the painter - these are paintings not too far into my hall which those outside are still able to enjoy with me. 

I pause at another painting. It is nothing particularly striking, simply a Soldier, leaning against a concrete Bremer wall under some palm trees, staring up at the waxing gibbous moon through a mist of cigarette smoke. There was no patrol for him that day, although it was with apprehension that he and the others waited for Sunni mortars to drop out of the sky - it would be just their luck it would happen on Christmas Eve.  But no shells came.  It was peaceful. And his thoughts wander to his young wife and infant son spending this Christmas Eve without him, and he without them.  He’d faked it as best he could in this environment, he thought, as he shivered against the quite chilly 70F breeze.  He’d projected the silly yule log video on the wall of his office hut, he’d put out the cookies sent from home, he’d even decorated minimally. But it was Christmas in a warzone, and he was just one of many Soldiers who had spent his Christmas in such a manner.  As his cigarette reached the bitter end and the inhales became warmer, he simply asked that his son would live in a better world someday.  It’s not my favorite painting in the hall, but it serves a purpose. For without it I would never realize the beauty of all the other paintings, no matter how plain they may seem.  

There are a series of paintings slightly older than the Soldier one which, while enjoyable, bear similarities in their Christmas Markets, Glühwein, and cheery glow of Christmas stalls.  There is a Thanksgiving in Copenhagen. An Advent in Munich. But these are for another night, these are not the paintings to which I was guided by Greensleeves and the Christmas Ghost. 

Treading further down the hall there is the alcove with the deacon’s bench.  Working backward in the hall’s chronology, it marks the beginning of one of my most beloved segments of paintings, despite its existence in my own life’s timeline as an ending.  There is someone in these paintings, this one from 2005, who exists in the previous 24; and while I can’t personally see the earliest paintings at the farthest end of my hall, for the candles have long since expired there, I know she bears a place in those as well. It is this part of the hall where the red carpet is the most worn.  The deacon’s bench creaks as I sit upon it, and I notice that this painting is foggy, more of a Monet than a Canaletto, but I attribute it to the boundary it presents between the older paintings and its immediate pair of successors, much more dimly lit.  I cherish and respect this painting, as I know, much like the others further along, that it has close similarities with those possessed in my loved ones’ own memory halls.  But I can’t dwell here. Every visit to the hall risks being interrupted by a knock on the great door, now far behind me.  I rise and see the most decorated alcove, seventeen, or eighteen paintings further.  

My steps are slower now, here I pause to admire a Kinkade-style Charleston street scene, with a skinny Citadel cadet on a Saturday evening pass finding solace in a Kinkade art gallery.  It is endearing in its kitschiness.  Or there I see a Rockwellian sledding scene with children making a sport of dodging pine trees… probably not the wisest choice of activity. But this is still not what Greensleeves and the Ghost want me to see.

And then, much as discovering, again and again, one’s favorite painting in the National Gallery of Art, there is the alcove to which Greensleeves has led me. This painting… is a masterpiece.  In intricate detail, two children sit by a Christmas tree, with a stucco hearth warming the room.  Their father reading a Christmas story, their mother holding close a third child, the smallest at the time, whose dark locks partially obscure her large eyes. The boy and his sister, sitting side by side in matching one-piece pajamas listen intently. In the background, the metal radiators in the Italian country villa make the metallic ping-rattle that the boy would associate with the Christmases of his youth.  The pop of sappy wood and the creak of the father’s reclining chair.   There it is before me.  This masterpiece.  Greensleeves and the ghost have guided me well. Every detail, when focused upon, opens up to even more details.  Look! Look at the smiles, the anticipation on their faces, the unknowingness of what the future would bring. The innocence and ignorant bliss of childhood captured in a moment, the warmth of heart and hearth portrayed by unearthly oils upon a synaptic canvas.  Here it is! Here is my Christmas, and here is where every ounce of me at that moment longs to stay. With them, with her, in that time. But the beauty of this hall is that things must come to pass to be enshrined within these candlelit walls.  And we are only guests for a brief time, lest the beauty of our halls detract from that which our Ghosts of Christmas Present wish us to experience. The paradox, as such, is that we can not linger in admiration of our past paintings for too long at risk of failing to compose our present ones.  For there will be more, there will be more wreathed and holly-adorned canvases in alcoves not yet present in the hall.  This will be a favorite, but I also know that as more paintings fill the hall, my time spent with this one will wane.  But for a moment, I have revisited it.  

I hear the door creak. A young face peers around. A face only found in the paintings closest to the door. She and her siblings will grace more canvases in Christmases to come. She is beckoning and, for an augenblick I feel torn on whether to stay or return to her. This painting I will always have, but my palette calls and, equipped with the inspiration of all the paintings surrounding me, I go forth to paint my portrait of Christmas Present. The melody of Greensleeves has swelled and begins to wane. Until next year, when that Ghost beckons, I feel it is time to leave this end of the hall.  I make my way to the door and exit. 

I have traveled with the Ghost of Christmas Past again.

My daughter looks at me across the dinner table, with an inquisitive eyebrow raised. 

I was only away for a handful of earthly seconds.